1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for identifying a person from a detected eye image. More particularly, the eye position is promptly and effectively identified from the detected facial image through the character analysis of selected similar eye regions.
2. Related Prior Art
Generally, a face recognition method is a typical technology adopted conventionally for identifying a person at a surveillance check point. However, this conventional method has a disadvantage when checking a person who bears a faked ID. Therefore, it is required to develop an advanced technology for recognizing true identity. As the demand increases, research is actively undergoing for developing an eye recognition technology from a detected image through a watching camera. The eye recognition technology takes advantage of a human feature that has a unique organic pattern, similar to a fingerprint or iris.
The eye recognition technology can be applied to various security systems, such as an entrance of an apartment, private residence or office, car door, automated teller machine, or membership-club where the verification of the user is required. Recently, the eye recognition technology continues to be researched for combining with the conventional IC/magnetic/RF card reader and fingerprint recognition technology
The eye recognition technology adopts the method of discriminating the detected image. The search object detected from the watching camera is discriminated from the background image for effectively identifying a person. The discriminating value of the background image without object has a lower pixel value than that of the background image with object. Thus, it is possible to effectively trace the object if the discriminated image is decoded to a binary coded image through a proper critical value.
The eye recognition method adopts the template technology for matching face images from the search regions. The method of eye recognition is performed using the conventional method of template matching to compare the detected image with a template to search the similar image positions. This technology is widely used for searching the face image regions in the field of face recognition technology. Only the face portion is separated from the images of a person with background for searching the face images.
The conventional face recognition technology adopted a template matching method that scans over the entire face to pick out the similar face shapes among the pre-provided various facial shapes. The detected image pixel value is compared with the template image pixel value while scanning over the entire face image to match a similar face shape.
Because the effect of the background illumination varies depending on the place and time, it is necessary to adjust the brightness value of the face images. Thus, the face image taken through a watching camera performs the specified histogram with a standard brightness to eliminate the effect of the background illumination. The specified histogram is generally used to evenly distribute the brightness and reduce the effect of the background illumination.
However, the conventional method of face recognition has disadvantages in that it is difficult to distinguish between the object and the background. The searching speed is also very slow because it is necessary to scan over the entire face for all templates. The accuracy of the searching is poor because the template matching process does not count the effect of the background illumination